Join me tomorrow at the Ustream Ubuntu Translations channel, where I’ll give you a summary about the great sessions we had around translations last week at the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Budapest, where we discussed the plans for the next cycle: the Oneiric Ocelot. As usual, feel free to come along, ask your questions and have a chat around translating Ubuntu.

Note that if you wish to participate in the online chat, you’ll need to sign up for a ustream account (it doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes), but I’ll also be answering your questions on the #ubuntu-translators IRC channel on Freenode.

Join me in a fresh episode of Ubuntu Translations TV tomorrow, where I’ll be continuing the series started on the last session and explain what happens to translations when they get out of Launchpad and are delivered to our users for some localized goodness.

Again, this will be a bit technical, but not too much, and it will help everyone understanding the big picture of how translations work in Ubuntu.

Note that if you wish to participate in the online chat, you’ll need to sign up for a ustream account (you can use your Launchpad OpenID), but I’ll also be answering your questions on the #ubuntu-translators IRC channel on Freenode.

Not much, really. It would be great if you could create a Launchpad account before joining the session, so that you can get started trying your first translations during the hour, that’d be awesome. You’ll simply need an e-mail address and an Internet connection for that. You’ll find how to do this on the Translations QuickStart Guide.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how to easily contribute to Ubuntu in your language and to ask all your questions.

As every two weeks, this Thursday I’ll be preparing a fresh Ubuntu Translations Videocast for all of you interested in knowing more about the exciting world of translating Ubuntu.

I’d like to combine some basic with some more advanced topics, so that the subjects are interesting to both new and experienced translators. This week I’ll be doing a more technical talk (not too much, though) about the translation workflow in Ubuntu and all that happens behind the scenes.

Hopefully this will give you an overview of the whole infrastructure and will help you understand why some of the things are implemented the way they are.

Note that if you wish to participate in the online chat, you’ll need to sign up for a ustream account (it doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes), but I’ll also be answering your questions on the #ubuntu-translators IRC channel on Freenode.

Danilo told us all about the progress on upstream integration work in Launchpad and explained more in detail the part which has just been freshly? implemented for Ubuntu: better translation imports from upstream projects.

But that’s not all! This week comes packed with translations content, as I got interviewed by Jono and had the opportunity to talk a bit about our amazing translation community.

It’s been a great week here in Dallas, but all good things come to an end. Next week back in business from home and we’ll leave the space to the Launchpad folk to discuss their master plan during the Launchpad Thunderdome. Rock on.

Ladies and gents, I’m pleased to announce the next Ubuntu Translations videocasttomorrow from Dallas, Texas, where this week we are holding the Canonical Platform Rally for the next version of Ubuntu, the Natty Narwhal.

Those of you involved in translations will know Danilo well, not only for his work in developing the translations application in Launchpad, but also for his community involvement. A regular at UDS and GUADEC conferences, he’s also developed and maintained some of the key tools in the Free Software Localization ecosystem, such as xml2po and intltool.

Note that if you wish to participate in the online chat, you’ll need to sign up for a ustream account (it doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes), but we’ll also be answering your questions on the #ubuntu-translators IRC channel on Freenode.

Note that if you wish to participate in the online chat, you’ll need to sign up for a ustream account (it doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes), but I’ll also be answering your questions on the #ubuntu-translators IRC channel on Freenode.

This last couple of days in the Community team we’ve been looking at some of the ways to spread out the word about different areas of contribution in Ubuntu, share our excitement and reach out to a bigger audience.

We’ve been reviewing and reviving some resources we already had and we’ve been creating new ones, and in the case of translations I just thought I’d give a heads up to everyone about them.

Translations

Facebook

Check out our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ubuntu.translators and make sure to ‘Like‘ us to keep in touch! In less than two days we’ve already got more than 600 fans, so now it’s your chance to also show your support for the awesome work of Ubuntu Translators and to stay in touch with translations news.

Feel free to upload your pictures and videos related to translations, such as translation jam photos, and comment on our wall as well!

Microblogging

Twitter – If you use Twitter, you can subscribe to the ubuntul10n group to share thoughts and announcements in real time about everything related to translating Ubuntu. You can use @ubuntul10n, to send notices to the group, or the #ul10n hashtag for your related tweets.

Identi.ca – If you use identi.ca, you can subscribe to ubuntul10n to follow thoughts and announcements in real time about everything related to translating Ubuntu. In addition to @ubuntul10n, you can also use the !ubuntutranslators, !ubuntu-l10n, !ul10n or !utranslators tags to send notices to the ubuntul10n group, and the #ul10n hashtag for your related tweets.

Remember that these now exist in addition to the existing outreach resources. As before, the main channel for discussion and announcements remains the ubuntu-translators mailing list, but we also want to reach out to everyone who prefers other communication methods. All important announcements will be posted in all of these channels.

First of all though, big thanks to those of you who joined in with your comments and questions.

I was really really pleased to see lots of participation, both in the ustream chat in the show’s page and in the #ubuntu-translators IRC channel. I think that’s the best format to make it your show as well: do ask your questions, comment and make it more interactive. I can go on forever rambling on… err… talking about translations, but your participation makes it more fun and more personal, which is one of the objectives of these shows.

So for those of you who missed it, here’s the link to the recording to watch it in your own time:

One thing I did not manage, though, was to match Daniel’s comedy gold moment. Dogs and door bells apart, remember to watch his next show on Thursday next week for more Ubuntu Development goodness!

As it was the first time I ever did this, it was a bit experimental. I’ve been pondering about topics for the next shows, and here’s a list of the things I think folks might find interesting:

Ubuntu Translations Workflow – How is Ubuntu translated

Natty Translations Roadmap – An overview on the translations community projects this cycle and their progress

Translating Ubuntu in Launchpad – A tutorial on how to use Launchpad to translate Ubuntu

Best Practices for Translation Teams – Tips and advice for translation teams when translating Ubuntu

Internationalizing your application – Introduction on how to internationalize and make applications translatable

…

So what do you think? What would you like to know more about? Do you have any other ideas or suggestions for topics? Do let me know by commenting here or on the Ubuntu translators Facebook page. The main thing is that the biweekly videocasts are useful for you all.

Join metomorrow on the first ever Ubuntu Translations videocast and learn more about our ever amazing community. I’ll be talking about how Ubuntu is translated, how translation teams work, and whatever else time allows. On later shows I’ll focus in more detail on particular subjects (upstreams, best practices, etc. – I’ll also take requests!).

Tell your friends and bring them along! This is a great opportunity to learn something new, to have a relaxed chat and to ask anything you always wanted to know about Ubuntu translations.

Some quick notes: if you wish to participate in the online chat, you’ll need to sign up for a ustream account (it doesn’t take more than a couple of minutes), but I’ll also be answering your questions on the #ubuntu-translators IRC channel on Freenode.

We’d like to show how translations change people’s lives for the best, and how the work of translators has an impact on that. We’d like to share our excitement and highlight the awesome work translators do, and we thought that articles with translations stories would be the perfect vehicle for that.

In order to achieve this, we need your help. You don’t have to be a translator for this: you only need a few spare hours and be willing to give back to the project contributing on this effort to raise awareness on translations.

So, without further ado, here’s how:

Contribute

Do you want to submit a story to let everyone know about the fantastic work the translation team in your language is doing? Well, that’s easy!

Sign up. Sign up for writing a translations story on this wiki page by adding your name to the list there.

Research. Think about what you want to write, and get some information. The Get inspired section below (or here) should give you a few pointers to get you started.

Write a Story. Write a short article highlighting an area of your choice related to translations. Don’t forget to add a picture!